Field trip with M

I went to see Dinosaurs with M's class/grade. Pretty interesting, though I'm not exactly sure how they're connecting it to the curriculum. And very frustrating as it didn't seem to be well planned. We spent at least 30 minutes loading, unloading and reloading the buses. Only 5 buses, for over twice as many people as 5th grade field trips when we would take 3 full buses. It was crazy and crowded - the kids were all 3 to a seat and 6th graders are getting rather big for 3 to a seat!

Then once we finally got down there and in the arena, it was rather a free-for-all of seating. We all had tickets for assigned seats, but someone declared that the kids could sit anywhere in the section of seats for our group, so we weren't anywhere near the rest of M's class (my 5 boys wanted to be closer to the front). I did make them all sit together, of course.

Then some of the kids in other classes had their lunches with them and were eating during the show. My guys were getting hungry, seeing the food. So, when the surprise intermission came up, I went looking for the teacher to find our lunches. A couple of the teachers were debating -
Yes, lets eat now - they have seats and cup holders
No, we're going to the park afterwards to eat
Wait - no, we won't go to the park, but we can eat outside on the sidewalk
Well, maybe they could eat now
etc, etc, etc

I finally started finding our lunches. I knew they wouldn't let us eat on the bus and I'm not a happy camper if I don't get to eat. Plus, I figured if we did have time later, the kids could hang out and talk, but right then we had time and seats, so why not.

After the program ended was another dose of chaos. There were no instructions on where or when to meet the buses. I was worried we might be late when I took the time for a bathroom break for everyone, but it turns out we waited at least 20 minutes outside for the buses to show up. One good thing, though - they sent an extra bus to get us back to the school, so we weren't quite as crowded. Yeah.

I overheard bits and pieces of interesting conversations (unfortunately during the show, so I had to quiet them) between M and a friend - discussing evolution and the absolute truth of the bible. M thinks his friend is crazy to think people lived alongside dinosaurs (and his friend probably thinks M is a heathen for not believing every word of the bible).



I found it quite interesting that I could get decent pictures without a flash, but not with. The image stabilization on this camera really seems to work fairly well. I got some photos that are clearly blurry where the dinosaurs were moving, but this one where the dinos were still, seems fairly clear, though I wasn't using a tripod or a flash.